True as Steel
by Graffiti My Soul
Summary: There are no true heroes and no glory in war – only the ones that manage to survive. 50 Prompt Challenge. Faye Amell/Zevran, implied Amell/Cullen, Alistair/Cousland. Part of Giustiaverse.
1. Chapter 1

**TRUE AS STEEL**

_There are no true heroes and no glory in war – only the ones that manage to survive. 50 Prompt Challenge, occasional Faye Amell/Zevran and Alistair/Cousland. Part of Giustiaverse._

* * *

><p><strong>14. Burning<strong>

Scarlet lights up the room and suddenly there is blood _everywhere_, the Templars have been thrown back and Jowan is running out the door to freedom while Lily screams –

Faye rushes to Irving and Greagoir's side to help the two up, but the latter brushes her away with a heavily armored hand that hurts, both outside and within. She'd always gotten along reasonably well with the Knight Commander, and now he accuses her with disappointment in his eyes.

Jowan's betrayal hurt like claws across her heart, but Greagoir's look makes her burn with shame.

**1. Walking**

Nobody remembers to get the newly recruited Circle mage a pair of proper walking shoes. Her slippers are better suited for the smooth stone floors of the Tower than for traveling through the rough terrain of Southern Ferelden, and by the time they get to Ostagar her feet are blistered and bleeding.

Duncan immediately buys her a pair of leather boots out of sheer pity.

**16. Breaking**

_His heart is breaking_, _broken_, proclaims the lines of Alistair's face. Every whisper of "We_ trusted_ him," makes Faye think of Jowan instead of Loghain, "I could have – if I had done things differently, maybe Duncan wouldn't –" she remembers wondering what she should have done, in the course of her friendship with Jowan, to prevent him from falling to the lure of blood magic - so that the day she'd been recruited into the Grey Wardens would _never happen_.

Every aching inch of her understands Alistair's bewildered grief and regret, and so she puts off Morrigan's verbal jabs at Alistair and lets him push the responsibility of leading to her - even though she has even _less _of an idea than him of what to do out in the world. She's all alone except for a Witch of the Wilds and an almost-templar Grey Warden. She's been outside of the Tower for a month and now she is one of the two people left in Ferelden with a chance of defeating the Blight.

Faye swallows hard, buries her own heart somewhere deep down, and moves forward.


	2. Chapter 2

**4. Wonder**

"You shall make yourself ill," Morrigan says disdainfully to the younger mage. They have been traveling together in the direction of Lothering for two days, and her opinion on Faye is not quite set – but the fact that the woman stands outside gaping at the sky in the midst of a storm does not speak well for her sanity.

"It's...beautiful," Faye whispers, wonder infused in her voice. "We heard the thunder even inside the Tower, of course, but I couldn't even imagine what all this wind and rain might feel like. Or _lightning_! Real lightning from the _sky..._"

Morrigan groans and returns to her own tent with the knowledge that Faye would lose her awe for rain once she had to travel through the mud in the morning. She is, unfortunately, quite right.

**32. ****Sorrow**

The red-haired woman clad in the genteel robes of a Chantry sister smiles and names herself as "Leliana". Her Orlesian accent is soft, lilting, and pleasant to the ear. She is devoted to her faith and possibly a little more than mad, but she wants to help and it seems unwise to turn down _anyone_ willing to assist.

It doesn't hurt that Morrigan despises her on sight. Anything that Morrigan disapproves of is good in Faye's book.

Still, amongst all the other small details – the well-kept state of her humble wooden bow, strange for one pledged to the Maker – the most distinct thing is that mantle of sorrow that seems to hang around her shoulders.

Leliana is beautiful, but Faye recognizes someone who's been broken. She'll be her friend, she decides. It's impossible to ignore the haunted look in those eyes.

**40. Solitary**  
>In the midst of demons and abominations, Faye remembers that Anders had been placed in solitary just a week before her recruitment. His imprisonments lasted from a couple months to – the worst one of all, a year – and she had little doubt that the Templars had forgotten him, in his basement cell.<p>

Wynne gives her a look – _the_ look, the one that says "You are acting childish and I am going to be the wise, responsible one here," – and tells her that the important thing to do is to save Irving, who is likely up in the Harrowing Chamber. Faye finds herself struck with fierce resentment – Irving deserves to be saved just because he is First Enchanter, because Wynne wants to _live_ and won't be able to without his word. Irving is an old man who has lived his life and placed power games above the wellbeing of his students. [She remembers, all too well, going to Irving with blind trust and thinking that he would surely sort Jowan out, convince him that escaping was a terrible idea -]

She thinks about the cold, hollow feeling that followed after Alistair struck her with a Holy Smite in practice, and tries to imagine staying like that, drained of her mana, for months on end. Huddling in the darkness behind bars as screams float above and wondering when the monsters would come for you, alone and defenseless, without any sense of how much time was passing.

"I will not leave him," she scowls, and dashes for the stairs.

**44. Near**

They find Cullen - mind-shattered, but _alive._

She sinks to her knees in front of him, wanting to scream; but her throat locks up and she chokes on his name. He looks at her, but his eyes catch a vision somewhere over her shoulder that has stolen her voice and face. She feels as if she is underwater, her senses warped. His words burn through the haze like acid. Faye presses herself against the magical barrier until he's so near that if they weren't separated she could probably count his eyelashes. It _hurts._ She doesn't care.

Her friends pull her (Alistair picks her up, his armor cold against her clammy skin, and she screams at him for his trouble) away from the barrier before she wastes all her mana – or bloodies her hands by beating on the magical shield. "I'll save you from this I _swear_," she whimpers, clawing wildly at the gauntleted hands around her waist. "_Uldred will die._"

**3. Wishes**

Leliana comes to sit with her by the fire at camp that night after they returned from the Circle Tower. "Would you like to talk?" the bard asks her after a moment of silence, her lilting voice gentle. "The man we saw today, the one who survived the Desire Demon...you knew him, yes?" Faye grimaces and nods, slowly.

_Knew him_. Cullen had been her_ friend_, he had stayed with her the night Surana never returned from her Harrowing and he had touched her arm the last time she left Irving's office -

"I used to wish...that he might care for me," she breathed, scarcely daring to voice the words. "But I never wanted _that_. I never wanted him to suffer..."

_"Sifting through my thoughts, using my shame against me... my ill-advised infatuation with her... a mage, of all things."_

Later, in the light of the lantern that hangs inside her tent, Faye cries. Just once, she tells herself - for the boy she had known and loved, the man who had been destroyed by a demon wearing her mask


	3. Chapter 3

**32. ****Stupidity**

There's more to Alistair than everyone thinks.

It takes Faye a while to realize it. She feels nothing particular about him. He acts like an overgrown puppy, a child in a man's body – always joking, easily distracted, raised by winged, Anderfellian dogs.

He's also a bastard. _King Maric's_ bastard.

Suddenly, stupidity is only a mask. She thinks of the fierce, calm expression that only shows itself when he fights, and imagines a crown of gold over its brow.

To be honest, it's not a bad look.

**45. Natural**

She lets him slide his hand over her thigh, focusing on the warmth of sun-tanned fingers and pushing aside the lingering thoughts of men with copper curls and crooked smiles. He asks, as gently as any assassin is capable of, "My Warden, are you sure?"

"_Please_," she responds, leaving the rest of her request unspoken. _Please make me forget._

Zevran smells like fresh leather and musk, and the taste of sweet brandy slants itself over her mouth. She falls back into the grass, soft and green, and pulls him down with her, closing her eyes. There is nothing about him that reminds her of _Tower_– not a hint of stone or parchment or even the faint pull of lyrium that exists like a perpetual fog – and right now he is everything she needs.

Faye curls her fingers into the fine blonde hairs at the back of his neck, and sinks into the kiss as naturally as breathing.

**6. Whimsy**

It's a simple whim, but one night at camp Faye lets Leliana do what she likes with the ebony hair she usually keeps twisted up out of the way. It ends up entwined with a silk blue ribbon in a braided style that the redhead insists had been quite fashionable in Orlais before she left. It's a bit of a mess, but Faye doesn't mind. Much.

Wynne watches from the other side of the campfire with eyes lined in wrinkles and a sad smile. She can't help but think that girls their age_ should_ be playing with their hair and giggling over shoes, not sleeping with daggers or staves at hand, the faint reek of darkspawn blood clinging to their skin.

**12. Blessing**

Wynne and Leliana leave Redcliffe Chantry to deliver the silver amulets to Ser Perth, but Faye stays behind for a moment longer.

"Mother Hannah..." she starts hesitantly. "If it is not too much trouble, might I ask for your blessing before the upcoming battle?" The older woman's face immediately twists as her eyes flash to the staff on Faye's back. Her reply is polite, but edged with the slightest touch of derision.

Faye barely reels, having half-expected the discrimination against her magic, but to her surprise Alistair gently grabs her by the elbow and leads her away before the Mother can say anymore. "Alistair, what-?"

"I know you weren't a Warden long enough to get to know the others, but in the Order other Wardens are your family. I can't just stand here and listen to my sister get insulted, can I?" He smiles at her. He's tall enough to block out the sun with his head and she looks up at him with warmth swelling in her heart. It's the first time anyone..._not a mage_ has defended her.

" ...I guess I could do worse than you for a brother," she says carefully, smiling after a short pause. "Does that make me a princess?"

**17. Belief**

"Sometimes you seem like a rational person, and then I discover that you too follow the _Chantry,"_ sneers Morrigan. "Is this because they jailed you and force-fed you their stories until you knew nothing else?"

Faye shakes her head and lightly corrects, "I am Andrastian, but I do not entirely agree with the Chantry and their views on many things." The witch rolled her eyes.

"Regardless, that still means you blindly worship a Maker who even you admit has abandoned the worlds and the people he created! What is this purpose of your religion, except to express superiority over what you do not value or what you fear?"

"Belief is a power of its own, Morrigan," Faye replied softly. "I believe in the words of Andraste, and I find that my belief encourages me to be- to try and be – a better person. To do what should be done, and not necessarily what is easiest. It would be easy for Alistair and I to abandon Loghain and Ferelden to the darkspawn, but instead we're taking on _all the problems_ in this country _and _the Blight."

"It would be cowardly to run away," the elder pointed out. "You are Grey Wardens, your duty is to fight darkspawn and battle Blights when they occur."

"But isn't being a coward easy? Andraste gives me the courage I need to wake in the morning and _get up_, instead of curling under my blanket and crying in frustration the way I'd like to, sometimes. My belief gives me strength."

**47. ****Valiant**

Bann Teagan uses words like 'valiant' and 'honorable' when he speaks the day that Redcliffe burns their dead.

Faye looks at the bound and broken body of a little boy, carefully bundled up next to two militia men in one of the rafts being pushed out into the lake, and wishes that perhaps there had been _less_ bravery in this one battle.


	4. Chapter 4

**41. Nowhere**

"Did they really have to hide your Prophet's remains in a place unmarked on any map?" grumbles Morrigan, in a particularly foul mood because of the climb up to Haven. According to the parchment map Alistair had purchased in Lothering, it is located in the middle of _nowhere._

"At least we're almost there," Leliana responds cheerfully.

**37. ****Soliloquy**

It would be easier to believe, but Faye stares at the spirit who looks like Cullen but _isn't_ and shakes her head. "I won't talk to you – you're not really Cullen. You're just a memory." Admitting it out loud makes her impossibly sad, because _if only it were really him-_

But talking to this spirit would be a conversation with herself, not an opportunity to make up for past regrets.

Cullen's face, bright and missing the heavily shadowed eyes or lines of stress that he had the last time she saw him in life, nods slowly and fades away. She sees a shimmer of silver that might be an amulet, but it disappears before she can touch it.

**29. Jewel**

When their exhausted group returns to Redcliffe Castle with the satchel of sacred ashes in tow, Bann Teagan is waiting for them with a lovely blonde woman at his side. She wears simple clothing of fine make, her elegant posture and the single jewel at her neck enough for Faye to identify her as a noble.

Alistair is _smitten._

"My name is Elissa Cousland, it's a pleasure to meet you," the woman smiles, extending one hand to the flustered, handsome Warden.

He fumbles for a moment before accepting it, a – is that a _smirk?_- spreading over his face. "The _pleasure_ is all mine," he replies. Behind him, Leliana giggles into her hands.

**22. Quirks**

"...Cheese. Seriously? Out of all the things we've encountered, your great weakness is _cheese_?"

Faye gives Alistair an incredulous look even as the fair haired Warden casts his shining gaze on the great wheel of soft yellow cheese that lies buried in the depths of an enchanted icebox in Arl Eamon's pantry. He reverently cuts a thick slice off the block and takes a bite, chewing it with the same expression of uninhibited pleasure that Zevran got when –

She cuts the thought off, grimacing at the unconscious mental connection she'd just made between her innocent brother Warden and decidedly _un_-virginal resident assassin. Alistair doesn't seem to notice, since he gives her a barely-closed grin and mumbles around the chunk, "We're all allowed our quirks."

**28. Jousting**

"You are...coming with us?" Wynne asks in surprise, glancing between Elissa and Alistair with raised eyebrows. Elissa nods, tying her long blonde curls into a neat braid and brushing at an invisible bit of dirt on her freshly-crafted leather armor.

"I was taught to fight alongside Fergus at my own insistence, much to my mother's despair. I won't get in your way, I promise. You need someone who understands politics with you if you're going to Orzammar – someone with a noble's perspective, I mean," she says, in reference to Leliana and Zevran.

The latter gives her clean, flawlessly sharpened blades a look and responds, not unkindly, "You are...very sure of this, dear lady? Battling the darkspawn will not be like jousting with your father's knights." She stubbornly shakes off both his warning and Sten's disapproving glare ("_Another_ one who does not understand their place,") and jogs to catch up with the two Wardens in the front.


End file.
